Tag: baby

Giggles quilt gone minimalist

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I have a whole pile of quilts I’ve started and finished since the last time I posted, plus some diversions into sewing bags. Like I keep telling others, just start writing.

I finally had a night with no plans and a need for mindless sewing. On a previous occasion, I had cut and bagged a number of planned quilts, so I grabbed the pieces for the Giggles quilt I had all ready to go.

Sometimes I look at stash fabrics I should use and patterns I wish to try and occasionally they line up magically. I had an idea in my head for this quilt to be very minimalist – mostly white and blue, with one single red arrow. I thought it would look striking.

I mostly just glance at patterns and skim directions. In this case I sewed too many diamonds one way. The illustrations made it seem like they were all sewn in one direction, but they are not. I love to batch sew, so I regrouped and set up batches, eventually lining up my rows correctly and making sure the red was going to wind up in the right place.

I didn’t stop to take pictures, I was half watching & listening to Hemlock Grove (of all things) on Netflix while I sewed and pressed, finding my happy place and just relaxing. I figure the piecing took 2 1/2 hours, including mistakes.

I taped it up in the only available place in my sewing cave and took this single shot.

modern solids giggles quilt. #gigglesquilt #quilting.

Afterwards I took a nice long hot soak in the tub. It was glorious.

Still deciding on binding – likely the blue – and the backing, which I can’t decide between the blue (because I have lots) or the white (of which I have enough for many quilts).

The quilting hasn’t yet been figured out. Lines placed 1/4″ from some seams would work but might be too sedate. I don’t quite want to do heavy custom work in each square either.

It will come to me eventually.

This quilt isn’t for anyone in particular, just an exercise in piecing and design. It will likely go up for sale.

Appliqued baby name quilt

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When I heard I was going to be a grandmother for the third time in four years, well of course my first thought was what quilt I was going to make.

Okay, maybe that was my second thought.

After I made this baby quilt, I figured you would love to have this free baby quilt pattern. It was super fast and easy to make.

I had a yard or two of a lovely fabric with dancing bunnies in pretty pastel Easter gowns. It was perfect after we knew we would be expecting another girl. I pulled some somewhat matching tiny prints for the letters for the front of the quilt.

baby quilt letter placement

For the front piece of the baby quilt, I used about a yard of a tone on tone off-white print. It’s about 30-36″ by the 42″ width of the fabric. Then I cut the letters freehand from the fat quarters I had chosen to complement the print on the back.

The letters could also be done with a large thick font. My size was about as big as a regular sheet of printer paper, so you could draw them out on paper first and then cut them from the fabric.

It would be smarter as well, to fuse some fusible web to the back of the fabric before cutting out the letters. I didn’t, and it made my work a bit harder.

Also if you have a name with a lot more letters, you will need to make the letters smaller so they all fit. If you’re not sure, do a test with paper letters first.

baby quilt testing fabric placement

 

You can see here how I didn’t like the original fabric for the letter A and swapped it for a yellow instead.

fusing letters in place on baby quilt

 

Here’s the quilt on my design board with the letters pinned in place to test placement. You can go vertically in a straight line – mark a guide line if you like – or go all funky and wonky.

Fuse the letters in place. This is mostly to hold them down before appliquéing.  I used a blanket stitch that came on my Bernina Aurora 440 Quilter’s Edition. A zig zag will also work perfectly fine.

back of baby quilt

 

Baste the top and bottom together with your favourite batting and quilt away! I used an allover paisley design, and went around the letters entirely, adjusting the design to fit. This is great practise for any allover design you want to try. And a baby quilt is a great size to practise on.

I also used a pretty Sulky variegated thread in pink / green / yellow. It matched perfectly.

easy fast baby quilt

 

You can see here how puffy the letters look. The only thing I would do different now is to outline quilt the letters.

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I bound the quilt in a jade green dot that was actually from a line of Christmas fabric. It works though!

I always pre-wash my quilt, so after coming out of the washer and dryer, the cotton fabrics and cotton batting crinkled up so nicely. It looks like a family heirloom already.

This is a super easy and fast quilt to through together. Just make sure the parents don’t change the name before birth, if you are making one ahead of time. 😉

Colorblock quilt, all done!

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For finish it up Friday, I got the bonding all done on this quilt. It’s now taking a spin in the wash. I always wash and dry the baby quilts then check them over for loose threads and any place where I did a lousy job seaming.

Binding all done, time for a wash!

I’m really happy with how this one turned out. I’ve been working on piecing accuracy and undoing some bad habits I picked up over the years, like pulling the fabric taut while I sew. This causes it to ripple on the edges when relaxed.

Here’s a shot of the back, upside down.
Bach

I went and bought all new fabrics for this one, from the same line. I don’t usually do that.

Colorblock Quilt top

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For this quilt, I purchased the PDF Colorblock Quilt pattern from www.bijoulovelydesigns.com. The pattern is really well written and super easy to follow, with loads of clear diagrams. Perfect for beginners, a breeze for more experienced quilters.

I also went to two different Etsy shops to get the right fabric – Mod Tod by Riley Blake, purchased from Fiber Textiles and 44th St Fabric. Both shops were fabulous and extremely helpful, and my orders (to Canada from the US arrived within two weeks and a day apart. I was impressed with both places. So impressed, I now read Bev’s blog from 44th St. Heh. (Hi Bev!)

I had to piece one of my fabric for the long strip, but I did it carefully in the print and you hardly notice. The piecing and cutting was done in maybe 3.5 hours, while I watched episodes of Dr. Who on Netflix. About half the time was ironing, because I did follow the advice the iron seams open. The white I used for sashing is poly cotton, so somewhat sheer and I knew the seams from the darker fabric would show.

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The only issue I had is something I consistently have with long strips – running out of strip at the end of the seam. However much I pin, the fabric still shifts. I could have used my walking foot, but it’s so noisy and goes slower. I guess I’ll know for next time.

One short sashing piece wound up just short enough it pulled out of the seam so I do have to make a small repair by removing the strip and sewing it back in.

Overall, I’m really happy with the pattern and the fabric – even if I did wind up getting the blocks reversed. The recipient will never know or care, it’s still a gorgeous quilt!

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I’m not sure how I’ll quilt it yet, but I am open to suggestions. I’m thinking of leaving the narrow sashing unquilted. They wind up only 1″ wide. I’ll be using Hobb’s Warm and Natural cotton for the batting.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

Back in the swing of it

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Now that the room is up, I’ve been making time to spend down there. I also got some Craftsy classes, including Quilting Negative Space. I’m a HUGE fan of Angela already and this class is just great. I’m really enjoying it, even though I listen along as I’m making supper.

Tonight I had the itch to quilt so I decided to practise some patterns from Angela’s book along with encouragement from her course. I already had a baby quilt laying in a sad pile waiting for me to figure out how to do it. I took Angela’s advice to break it up into smaller sections. It’s improv pieced so there’s no real background, but since it’s so wild, I figured it was a great chance to practise different techniques all over it.

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Here I did two long pieces near the middle to start off and warm up.

 

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You can see the loops, back and forth (love this) and some swirls.

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Close up of doing the all over leaf pattern in the next “block”.

 

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In this block I marked a single line diagonally across then followed it to make the sunburst effect. I love how it feels.

 

 

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Two more long strips gave me the opportunity to try the swirl scroll and woodgrain. The scroll needs some work, but it’s good enough!

 

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And there’s all the work I did this evening. Halfway done!

It was quite fun doing a different design in each section or strip.

 

Update: I actually went through a whole bobbin last night, did a quick bit this morning and ran out of the *second* bobbin,

Pinwheels all done!

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Finally! And the pictures uploaded!

As I said in previous entires, I wanted to give the illusion of movement for the pinwheels and I think I got it here.

Note how I used a swooping curve in the plain triangles and left the print areas alone. I knew I wanted them puffy and raised, so I left them.

I went with a heavy back and forth quilting in all the sashing to flatten it and emphasize the pinwheels. I think I nailed it.

I’m also really happy with the 3 kinds of gingham used in the quilt.

The other thing I did slightly differently, was early on in my quilting process I swapped out my usual stitch regular automated foot and just went with the free motion or darning foot instead.

I think I want to write more about that, so someone looking at the Bernina stitch regulator will have some details.

Ayla’s quilt

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Ayla is my newest grandbaby (number two!) and it’s taken me a while to decide on exactly what kind of quilt to make her. Being born at the end of July really helped ease the pressure to produce a quilt right away too. 😉

I finally decided on Brioche and Baguette but the pattern is mail order and I did not want to wait.

So I winged it.

With the general idea of the pattern in mind (I will buy it later), I used a bunch of charm squares, a fat quarter and a bunch of 2.5″ strips – jelly roll sized. I was also of out white fabric with most of it buried in a storage container miles from here, so I also hassled my mom to see what was in her stash. The fabric is from Riley Blake – Apple of my Eye and mostly Pretty Little Things by Dena Designs for Free Spirit

Progress so far:

The white fabric is actually the support panel from a bedskirt. I got a little cutter-happy and wound up cutting waaaaay too many 2.5″ strips, but given how much I love to use white, I’ll use them elsewhere.

By the time I got the the laying out stage, I realized I really did want wider border on the side. I was going to just use the 2.5″ strips all around but for me, I visually did not want a skinny quilt. Unfortunately, there was barely enough white left. I would have liked to have cut the wider side sashing a full 5″ like the charm squares and the strips of fat quarter in the middle, but it was just a wee bit short. I wound up with 4.5″ strips but overall I don’t think it will too noticeable.

Except to maybe other quilters. 😉

For the center area, I really loved the trees fabric and made sure the pattern was matched up where I cut it. I could have cut the fabric shorter to not make the overall quilt so skinny, but I love the fabric so much! I wanted to show as much as I could.

This is going to bite me when I work on the back, but I’ll cover that next post. I only got the white fabric last weekend, and had made my mind up a couple days before that. Sometimes I don’t sew them up this fast, sometimes I just can’t help it.

The only reason I stopped today was because I had to cook supper and eat it. I hate when that happens.